More than a friendship
by Widom
Summary: When Acheron is close to death, he doesn't expect to be saved by an old friend he thought he would never see again. Even more, he did not expect the emotions that he would began to feel for his best friend, or that his friend's interferance could cost him
1. Prologue

**I don't like to talk at the beginnings of my fanfics, so I'll make this short.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own the Dark-Hunter books, or any Dark-Hunters. Quite sad, really.**

**Rating: This is _currently_ PG-13 because there is some language, sexual remarks, ect. I have no idea if there will actually be a sex scene in this fanfic, so I don't know if I'll have to change this or not. Also, this is a man-on-man fic, so if you don't like that, please leave. I probably won't get too graphic, but there is a lot of potential mush in here, or there will be.**

**Just Because: I'm not expecting a lot of reviews, because there doesn't seem to be a lot of Dark-Hunter fics, so I'm assuming there aren't many Dark-Hunter fans on this site. But...if you do come here, please spread the word: these are really great novels people, if a bit mature. Night Embrace is the one I actually base all my fics off of, simply becuase I don't like losing Zarek in Dance with the Devil. Broke my heart, so I won't use anything from that. I'm just pretending it doesn't exist.**

**On with the Dark-Hunter goodness!**

just...

creating...

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Prolouge

The explosion was enough to rock Acheron to his bones, and he cursed as he flew backwards from the mess that was left from the suicidal Daimon. With a thump, he landed gracelessly on the alley floor, smacking his head against the dirty surface, and watched as several of his Dark-Hunters did the same. Groaning, he stood on uneasy feet, and continued to fight the rush of violent Daimons who, to his surprise, fought back. Warrior Daimons, damn it. All of them, with no exceptions, it seemed, were Spathi. He hadn't thought there were any of them left, and now he was about to pay for not making sure.

Unprepared for this new development, he was unsurprised to note that his Dark-Hunters were, very rapidly, being over come by the stronger and more skilled fighters, including, he was asshamed to notice, himself. As a large group of them surrounded him, disarming him easily of his various weapons, he was forced to admit that, if he and his men did not surrender, the remainder of his men, of which there were few now, would be destroyed. The entire army of Dark-Hunters he had brought with him to fight this particular battle had been reduced to half, and then some, being at a strong disadvantage against the Daimons, especially with their strength weakening every moment from being in such close proximities with one another. Laying down his sword, he was forced to admit defeat for the first time in nearly 11,000 years.

"We surrender. We will no longer fight this battle" he stated calmly. He expected the Daimon in front of him to react in the honorable way, following the code of battle, and except their surrender. Instead, the man he had unconciously decided to be the leader grinned at him with malice, and thrust his sword, a fine creation made from Daimon silver and steel, through his side, just inches inside, narrowly missing his spine. He would have gasped, but he had long accustomed himself to not revealing any weakness to his enemy, no matter how great the pain. His face remained disturbingly neutral, even when the man twisted the blade in his stomach, intensifying the pain ten fold. Finally, the man yanked out his weapon, and looked at it dispassionately, seeming disgusted with the blood stains tainting the fine craftsmanship.

"We except no surrender, Dark-Hunter. Although it amuses me greatly to see you standing there with your blood running through your lips, I'm afraid it is time for you to die."

Acheron made no move to stop the blow that struck his face, and successfully knocked him to the ground. Instead, he moved his tongue to the edge of his mouth, where he indeed tasted the sweetness of his own blood. _My god, _he thought, wiping at the offending liquid with the back of his hand, _the bastard must have pierced an organ._ He felt one of the Daimon's various henchmen jerk his head up by his hair, and press a knife to the base of his throat, preparing to severe his head, the only way to kill him. But, then again, Arty would simply put him back together again, so death wasn't too much to worry about; the goddess had an unhealthy ubsession with him. _When I get put back together again..._ he thought, thoughts of vengance and revenge flitting briefly through his mind as the man behind him began to press the blade into his neck, breaking the skin. He waited patiently for the gush of blood, then the unconciousness that would follow, but it didn't come. Instead, he saw a flash of blinding light, white and intense, that he had only seen a few times before. The Daimon, whoever he was, was jerked unceremoniously off of him, and he felt gentle hands supporting him, even as he felt himself sinking back towards the ground. The hands stroked his hair soothingly, an unfamiliar gesture, and he couldn't help but be touched by it. He felt his lips stretch into a thin smile, even as he felt the first wave of unconciousness sweep over him. _An unconcious Dark-Hunter is a dead Dark-Hunter...but not this time_, he thought, vaguely feeling himslef rise into the air. He would not die today, for he knew the person whose help he had recieved, had known the man for a long time, but had not seen him since the plague had ended. He felt himself sinking, sinking, into a world of peace he scarely remembered, a time without dreams. With his last breath he whispered the words he rarely uttered"Thank you, Jasson."

Then, he fell unconcious.


	2. Old Friend

**Hello, hello! I said I wouldn't say anything at the beginning of my stories, so I'll make this short: Obviously, I do not own the Dark-Hunter books. Obviously, a lot of this stuff came from my own imagination. Sadly, many of the main characters don't exist.**

**Chapter 1**

Acheron woke up to find himself in a strange bed, with a sharp pain throbbing in his side. He resisted the urge to groan as he looked around the room, his Dark-Hunter eyes adjusting quickly to the unnatural darkness. He was slightly surprised to find that many of his men had also ended up in this room with him, which, he was coming to realize, was roughly the size of a castle ballroom, and surprisingly warm for its size. Also, it appeared to be some sort of sickroom, if an odd one. Acheron felt, just barely, the prickle of small, individual energy fields around each obscenely comfortable bed, unseen to the naked eyes of humans, but they clearly stopped hostile people from entering and hurting a healing individual.

_But why..._ he wondered absently, before his eyes fell on a secluded corner of four or five beds. Even from this distance away, he could feel the uneasy tingle as he sensed the unconcious body of a creature that had preyed on another, the slight jolt of several human souls crammed into a single body. _Daimons. Damn it, Jasson._ While he wasn't surprised that his friend's kind nature had made him take in the very people who had been about to kill him, he couldn't help but shake his head. Sometimes, Jasson was just too kind and naïve to be a real person, and the man always seemed to be able to surprise him. Well, not "man" exactly.

With a sigh, he shifted out from under the warm cotton blankets regretfully, and placed his feet on the floor. He was surprised to feel smooth oak against his bare feet, and hurriedly ran his hands over his back and shoulders, and, most especially his side. Even though there was a sharp pain at his touch, there didn't seem to be an apparent wound any longer. Also, he wasn't wearing his own clothes.

_Hmmm...Jasson must have healed me,_ he thought, surprised, and he again felt his new clothes. They were finely made, almost with too small of stitches, and too fine of cloth. But then, they had come from Jasson, so he shouldn't be surprised. As he rose to his feet, another thought struck him. _Why, he must have changed me into these clothes as well._ That was very odd. Jasson, for one, hated physical contact, and was even convinced that it would burn through his skin like acid if another touched him. He shook his head at the reminder; he was assuming things. Jasson probably had an attendant of sorts that had cared for his...well, his guests, as he supposed they were. The same attendant that was probably even now watching to make sure him or any of his men didn't kill one of the Daimons, or kill themselves trying to get at them. The odd forcefield around each of their beds seemed to only let the occupant of the bed leave, but no one could get in, Acheron concluded, when he reached a hand towards one of his men's beds, and recieved a powerful jolt for this move, whereas he had felt nothing when leaving his own bed. Whoever had developed this spell, it seemed, was exceedingly clever. He would have said it was Jasson, but the man was naïve, and would no doubt wonder why they would want to hurt each other in the first place. In fact, his childlike veiw of things was usually quite charming, in an off sort of way. If Jasson hadn't been so incredibly strong, like all of his species, Acheron would have worried about him everytime he was out of eyesight, and he most definately wouldn't have trusted him to survive for a few thousand years without his protection. In fact, he was surprised that Jasson was still alive at all. But then, he was always surprising him, in one form or another.

Silently, Acheron crept towards the door, pulling on the smooth copper handle gently, expecting the normal creak that always seemed to happen whenever one opened the door in a exceedingly large house. There was none, so he pulled the door open farther, and entered the wide, carpeted hallway outside, looking up and down. There were only two other doors besides the one he had come out of, so he strode towards the closest one, relieved when he heard the sound of some of his more vocal Dark-Hunters and Squires bickering quietly.

"What are you talking about? Of course it's poisoned-" said one in a hushed voice.

"Nick, you nincompoop. Whoever saved us had plenty of oppurtunities to kill us while we were _unconcious_. I doubt they would go through all the trouble to poison us."

"Drugged maybe. Maybe the Daimons had an associate or something who is trying to find out information-"

"There isn't much they don't already know about us, except maybe Acheron. And again, they could have done so while we were sleeping. You are far too paranoid, Nick."

"Hey, I'm not paranoid, I'm cautious. I'm not immortal okay? Poison will kill me-"

Acheron chose that moment to walk in on their discussion, sensing the anger in the young Squire's voice. Whatever else was going on, he didn't need Talon and Nick fighting, especially with each other, and at this time of night. Now that he had entered a better lit room, he could easily tell that it was early morning, probably just past one, only an hour past the time when the battle had taken place and Acheron had felt himself fail. Since he doubted that Jasson had managed to get all of them here in less than an hour, he must have slept for at least a day. Possibly longer.

"Alright, alright. Settle down you two," he said calmly, striding towards the three men, the third one, a Roman named Valerius, stayed silent, watching the others with a sneer on his face. Acheron ignored him, having no urge to get into an arguement with him right then.

"What is the problem?"

Nick smiled openly at him, a friendly expression on his face, as he seemed to forget what he was arguing about.

"Why hello, T-Rex! Glad to see you're finally up. You know, we tried to wake you, but you were generating some sort of odd little field that shocked us whenever we tried to-"

"Thank you for your concern, Nick," he said, cutting the young man off before he got too off subject, as he tended to do. "I repeat, what is the problem?"

A look of disgust covered the man's face, and he gestured at the table they were currently seated at. He had not noticed it before, but the huge dining room size table was covered with food and drink, including, if he wasn't mistaken, several dishes of food that no longer existed, but that the Celts and the Romans tended to favor. Jasson had definately hit straight on the mark.

"I don't see the problem," Acheron said calmly, crossing his arms and raising his eyebrow at the dark-haired Squire.

"Well, once we gave up trying to wake you, we wandered out of that...sickroom place. You know, you really ought to teach us how to do that force field thing, it was incredibly effective in letting you sleep. How come we never knew you could do that before? Did-"

"Nick!" he said, impatiently. Sometimes it was interesting to talk to the Squire, with his habit of jumping from subject to subject. Whenever he was trying to learn something, however, it was just annoying.

"Right. Anyway, we came in here, this table was completely empty and then _pow,_ full of food. Including, and I asked Talon about this, a lot of food that is really hard to come by nowadays. I keep telling him it's poisoned or something, but he won't listen." He looked triumphantly at the Celt, and Acheron smoothed his hand over his face to hide his smile.

"Under normal circumstances, I would say your suspisions are well founded. However, in this case, they are not needed. I happen to know the person who saved us."

Nick's face fell, and he glared at the Celt. To Talon's credit, he only smiled a small, triumphant smile before pulling a plate of food towards him. Of course, the man had had a thousand years to practice being humble and unnoticable.

Nick looked at him with dark blue eyes.

"But, what if you're _wrong_ about them? Not to insult your judgement or anything, but people can be very tricky."

_Not Jasson,_ Acheron thought, shaking his head. He didn't even know if it was possible for Jasson to be deceptive.

"Not him. He's an angel."

This earned him several odd looks from the people at the table, and he sighed. Too late, he realized they had taken it the wrong way.

"Acheron...not that we don't value your opinion, but that is just more than we want to know," said Nick, looking ready to burst out laughing.

Acheron sighed. Even though he wasn't interested in Jasson that way, and he knew that Jasson certainly wasn't interested in him, that statement bothered him. A lot. What had happened to the exception of all sexual beliefs? If he remembered correctly, Rome, Greece, and Atlantis alike had all had their share of homosexual couples in the public eye, and nobody had cared. Maybe it was just him, but, to Acheron, it seemed that society had gone backwards in tolerance, not forewards. He would never admit it, but he missed the old days, even if he had died in a quite painful and humiliating way during them.

"Not like that! Listen carefully to my statement: He **is** an **angel**," he said clearly, putting all the emphasis he could into that sentence.

It took a while for his meaning to sink in.

"Oh! You mean like the creatures with wings, like in Christianity?" asked Nick, surprise on his face.

Acheron frowned. _Christianity..._now that was a strange religion. _Wings...of all things..._

"Not exactly. This type of...angel is not a servant of any god, in any way. Angels are more like a distant cousin of Dream-Hunters. They can travel in all of the four realms, but they don't like to spend much time away from their main one. Jasson, the one who happened to help us, prefers Earth to the others, and we're very lucky he does. Eat up," he finished, and sat down in the farthest chair away from the others, calmly picking up a piece of bread and tearing off a piece. He knew it was horribly immature, but he didn't want to sit near them if they were going to insult one of his better friends.

"Sounds interesting. When will we meet this savior of ours, do you think?" asked Valerius, saying something for the first time, and shocking the others because he hadn't said something nasty.

"I have no idea. He's around here somewhere, because I'm sure it was him who conjured up the food." Acheron looked at the piece of bread in his hand. He didn't normally eat food, because he didn't have to and usually rather disliked the entire experiance. However, since Jasson had made it...he bit into the bread, and smiled. One thing that could be said about angels, they did lovely work, no matter what it was. Their nartural talent for the arts, whether it be cooking, sewing, singing, or writing, had inspired poets and authors to write about them for centuries. Jasson, he decided, was rather talented, in all aspects of the art world.

Now that he thought about it, it seemed rather a shame that angels weren't allowed to have sex. They would probably be very good at it, considering some people considered it an art. As a rule, there was to be at least one angel for every art: why was sex any different?

Acheron shook his head. It had been ages since he had had thoughts along those lines, and not simply because, being a friend of Jasson, he had seen many amazingly attractive female angels. No, he had also seen a great deal of male angels, many far more attractive than their female counterparts. It had been thoughts like those, as well as several uncomfortable dreams, that had convinced Acheron to stop visiting the realm in which Jasson's angel friends lived most of the year. While he couldn't exactly say that he hadn't regreted the decision a few times, he knew it was for the best. Life was far less complicated when he wasn't feeling confused about his sexual preferances. Also, it had bothered Artemis, and she had all but threatened to turn Jasson into a pile of angel dust if he hadn't stopped.

_Quite sad, really._ If his protective nature hadn't taken over and insisted he protect his friend, he may very well have found himself risking Arty's wrath, just for the thrill of it. The woman deserved a bit of an inconvienience, considering all she had put him through. He sighed gently, swept up in memories as he finished his bread, and brushed the crumbs from his hands. It was at that moment that the others began to filter in in wispy drifts, none of them seemingly as hurt as Acheron had suspected. Perhaps it had simply been the sleep reflex that had defeated them, then. He hadn't lost quite as many warriors as he had thought. As briskly as possible, the others filed them in on what had happened while they had been recuperating.

As he had suspected, they began to ask him questions, many of which he couldn't answer. He frowned at this. Jasson was his friend, was he not? Why did all these seemingly simple questions confound and confuse him? He didn't know Why is he in New Orleans? He didn't know. Why had he helped them escape, and why were there Daimons in their sickroom? He didn't know that either. And, finally, the question that surprised him the most: How old was Jasson? He couldn't say, and the knowledge that he didn't know made him ashamed.

He had known Jasson for thousands of years, and the man had even taken him to _his_ world, the Fifth Realm, which few people knew about, and even fewer could travel through. Yet, in all this time, he had never bothered to ask when Jasson had been born. The thought made his chest tighten slightly with guilt, and he looked at the ceiling as the voices of his Hunters gradually began to increase, as more filtered slowly in. He knew they were concerned and confused, but did they have to be so loud? If they kept shouting so, they might wake the Daimons, and then where would they be? They could probably take the few there were easily, but Acheron respected Jasson too much to begin a fight in his house. With a sigh, Acheron prepared to tell them to shut the hell up, his patience at an end, when they all fell silent, looking over his shoulder en masse. Acheron smiled, pleased that his feelings hadn't gotten the better of him, and he turned, not surprised to see Jasson. However, Jasson did not look the way Acheron remembered him.

Physically, he was similar to when he had last seen him. The pale, butter-blond hair was still there, trailing past his knees in a thick braid, the length proclaiming him to be of a higher station of angels. The eerily pretty and angelic face was there, and his slender, 5'11 frame still wore the bright white silk pants, shirt, long coat and sash he had always worn. However, it was his eyes, eyes so deep a purple as to seem fathomless, that caught his attention. Gone was some of the charming naivety he had remembered so well, gone the cheerful smile that he had always had on his face. Instead, he looked weary, and cautious, happy, but saddened as if he had been thrown out of innocence so fast he had not been able to fully comprehend the transition. For a moment, Acheron became angry, furious that, in his absence, something had happened to change his old friend, and the refreshing way he had veiwed the world. All Acheron had ever known was the carnal and the corrupt; it saddened him to know the one aspect of his life that had been pure had wisened up, and was now no different than the rest of the world. Acheron waited for him to speak, certain that a snide, mocking tone would emerge.

It didn't.

"Hello Acheron," he said, his voice still as soft and soothing as it had always been. While the innocent joy was missing, the unchangable aspects of Jasson's personality were still there. This Jasson had, undoubtably, created the spell that had surrounded Acheron's and his Hunters' beds. This Jasson was wiser, but still as kind as the Angels' Law of Impartiality allowed. No, Acheron decided as Jasson smiled a true, sunny smile at them, relieved. Jasson hadn't changed that much.


End file.
